


Hair

by LadyOneiroi



Category: That was Then This is Now - S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Gen, Pointless OOC Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:31:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOneiroi/pseuds/LadyOneiroi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim was always there to help his sister, even with the simplest of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hair

Mrs. Shepard had never been a patient woman, and she never had time to do things properly. Between work and raising three kids and a long string of lovers, doing things right never seemed like a priority. If people complained enough about the way she did things, she just gave up and decided to let those who critiqued her do a better job.

This included her daughter’s hair.

When Angela cried out again, her mother just slammed the brush down and walked off, trusting her three year old to handle her mess of long black curls herself. Angela sniffled quietly, scalp still burning from the way her mother so roughly handled her hair. Tim, all of eight at the time, had watched in silence before stepping forward and picking up the comb. “Tim—" Angela hiccupped, but her brother shushed her and pulled the toddler into his lap. Gently, he started running the teeth of the comb through his sister’s hair, humming to keep the kid quiet. When he finished gently brushing her hair, he just stood up and left, leaving a confused Angela in his wake.

It became routine for them, with Angela running up to her brother in the mornings with her brush in hand and demanding, in that sweet childish way of hers, that he do her hair instead of Ma. Tim did it without complaint, without saying anything, really. It just became routine, another way for him to look out for his siblings. Wake up, brush teeth, eat breakfast, comb Angela’s hair, go to school.

Finally, after more than a year of this, he began teaching Angela how to do things for herself, including her hair. In time, she seemed to have forgotten how Tim used to gently coax her curls into behaving. Still, the night she screams and cries into her pillow over that dead Cade kid, Tim falls into an old habit. Sliding beside her, he gentle started finger-combing her curls, humming the same old song he used to until she stopped bawling and just fell asleep.

She never told anyone about it. It’s not like they would believe her. Tim Shepard did not do nice things like fix his sister’s hair. But from then on,whenever she was upset, Tim would just play with her hair and sing the songs their father sang, a lifetime ago. Some nights, it was the only thing that kept her going.

**Author's Note:**

> It Came From My Tumblr.
> 
> I love the Shepards and I will literally fight people over them.
> 
> Critique is welcome! Thank you for reading!


End file.
